Ignorance
by artistwithaknife
Summary: A short one shot in which Mr. Todd is completely blanking everything that Mrs. Lovett says, so she has to try and get his attention..


**Been meaning to get back into FanFiction, so I did a crappy little one shot. Sorry about how ridiculously short it is. Reviews appreciated. :)**

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A whole week. That is how long it had been since Mr. Todd had said anything at all to her. As always, she had gone upstairs twice a day in order to bring trays of food up to him and to collect his washing, but not once had he said a word- not even a mere 'thank you'! Bloody insufferable man. She knew fully well that it was all because he was so caught up in his vengeance, and images of the Judge consumed every single one of his thoughts, and honestly, she was getting sick of it. It wasn't as if wasting all of his time brooding over revenge would be helpful to him; he needed to wait for Turpin to turn up, and that was it. It wasn't as if he was planning on turning up to the Old Bailey and finishing him off there, so God knew what plans were going through his mind. The baker was actually becoming quite worried about him: he had hardly been eating, and every night, she was kept up by the sound of him pacing backwards and forwards in his tonsorial parlour above. As summer was gradually getting closer, it had been getting extremely warm and cheerful outside, and she would have loved for him to come along with her and Toby to the park one afternoon. But, when she asked, of course, he had ignored her and continued with his miserable sulking.

As opposed to fetching him a bowl of soup up on a tray for his evening meal, Mrs. Lovett decided to instead invite him downstairs to have dinner with herself and Toby. Surely, it would take his mind off things- if only temporarily, and she might even be able to spark up some sort of conversation. She tidied up after the last of her unsuspecting customers, and fixed her hair after the long day of butchering up bodies and serving them to Londoners in the form of meat pies, before heading upstairs to her tenant's shop. Knowing that she wouldn't get an answer, she simply walked in with her usual cheery smile plastered on her face, causing the little bell above the door to sound.

As soon as the bell rang, he span around from his place at the window, apparently assuming that she was one of his customers. There was an obvious glimmer of hope in his eyes, which told her that he really was getting desperate for the Judge to turn up, and she actually felt sorry for him. He was wasting away up here, and neither of them could tell how long it would be until he could claim vengeance.

"Oh," he murmured when he realised that it was only the baker coming to dote on him, turning back around in order to resume his usual task of glaring at the passers by outside.

"'Tis only me, Mr. T," she sighed, proceeding into the rather dull room and standing by the old chair with her hands on her hips.

Like every other time she had visited him in his shop that week, he acted as if she wasn't even there. She could see his reflection in the window: his blackened eyes searching the streets outside with chilling menace, and his face- if possible- even paler than usual. He didn't even care enough to question her presence, and as she could practically feel his mind frantically searching for a way to the Judge, she wondered if he'd even notice if she stayed there watching him all night. She shook her head to herself, the eery silence being too much for her awfully chatty nature.

"I, erm, thought that it would be nice if you came downstairs to eat tonight. I've cooked us up a whole, lovely dinner, and you look as if you could do with gettin' some food down you," she warbled on, her eyes not leaving his reflection as she searched for any sign that he was actually listening to her. But, she was only met with his silence.

"I've worked really hard on making it, even Toby's given me a bit of an hand. Think coming down for a bit would do you some good,"

And, still, silence. She tilted her head slightly with her eyes narrowed and her lips pressed together, watching as Mr. Todd drew out one of his beloved razors to absentmindedly play with as he stared outside. She couldn't tell if he was too caught up in his murderous thoughts to hear her, or if he just didn't want to respond. Either way, she quickly grew irritated as he payed more attention to the old piece of silver in his hand.

"Mr. T, are you listening to me?" Ever since returning to London, the barber hadn't exactly been the most verbal of people, but he was still never this ignorant. Raising her voice very slightly, she took a couple of steps towards him, "the food is going to get cold,"

He didn't even spare her a glance, indicating that perhaps he had just blocked the world out in order to completely commit to his revenge planning. She sighed, but felt too sorry for him to be mad. She mentally tried to reassure herself that after the Judge had been killed, he wouldn't ignore her again- he'd have no reason to. As Mr. Todd continued fiddling with his razor, his usual unconscious scowl plastering his features, she went over to his vanity, lightly running her pale fingertips over the various bottles of cologne and aftershave neatly placed there.

"You know what, I might just paint this whole room bright pink," she called over her shoulder in attempt to provoke a reaction, but his mouth remained shut, "add some femininity to the place,"

Still, nothing. Her eyes fell upon the open box of razors in front of her, and she took one out.

"Hell, I might even just throw your razors away," she tried, knowing that she was pushing her luck. She regretted saying it as soon as it came out, but she soon relaxed again when he didn't even flinch at her words. Definitely wasn't listening.

She knew that she should probably just give up and go downstairs to eat before her meal got cold, but she always used any excuse to stay up here with him. Even if the conversation was rather one-sided. Or, completely one-sided. She put his 'friend' back, and picked up the most empty of the cologne bottles, smelling it and smiling fondly since she recognised it as the one he most frequently wore.

"God, it's getting warm in here," she muttered mainly to herself, soon coming up with a rather amusing idea. It was worth a try, "might just take my clothes off,'

She turned away from the vanity to see his reaction, but his face remained unreadable. She could hardly believe it- saying something like that would usually work on a man.

"This corset is rather tight; might just have to… relieve myself from it," she continued, ignoring how she could feel herself blushing. She sighed again, her hands going back to her hips.

"No? I just feel so much better when I'm naked" Very bravely, she walked up behind him and hesitantly ran her hand up his back and to his shoulder, her voice becoming a mere whisper, "you wouldn't mind if I just stripped down to my boots, would you?"

Mrs. Lovett's brow furrowed when he even ignored that, and went on to mutter something under his breath about the Judge. She huffed loudly, giving up and turning around to leave.

"I'll bring you your tray up later,"

After slamming the door behind her rather forcefully, she went back downstairs in order to eat her now cold dinner, and send Toby back off to bed with his usual bottle of gin. As she did every night, she went down into the bakehouse in order to prepare the meat pies for the hungry customers tomorrow. She knew that she'd need a bath later, since the bakehouse was very stuffy, and she was getting rather aggressive with the corpses as she slaved away preparing them for the grinder. It was, after all, an effective stress reliever, which made her surprised that Mr. Todd was always so tense after all the throat slitting he did. Although her main philosophy for the barber's revenge had always been to 'just wait', even she was becoming impatient with him not showing up. She doubted that she'd get another word out of him until the man is dead, but as she remembered herself trying to get his attention by talking about getting naked, she could only giggle to herself. The man was definitely broken. After the pies had been prepared and she had scrubbed herself clean, she decided to make him some soup instead of just fetching him the cold dinner he had left. She knew that he would probably leave the majority of it and he wouldn't even be the slightest bit thankful, but she did care about him. After she'd filled the bowl with the warm soup, she headed upstairs.

When she opened the door, he was sat in his chair with a cup of tea, staring impassively at the wall in front of him. Well, at least he'd moved.

"Brought you your dinner, love," she said, but as expected, there was no answer. She turned away in order to leave, but froze when she heard his steady voice, "Mrs. Lovett,"

"Mmhmm,"

He looked up at her with an almost scary calmness, tapping his fingers silently against his mug. His lips slowly stretched into a small smirk, almost as if he couldn't help himself.

"I thought you were going to take your clothes off..."


End file.
